Catete Palace

Standing in front of Catete Palace, you are looking at what was once the ultimate private residence in nineteenth-century Brazil. It was commissioned in 1858 by Antônio Clemente Pinto, the Baron of Nova Friburgo. He made a colossal fortune in coffee, built entirely on enslaved labor, and he wanted a home in the imperial capital that matched his standing. He hired the German architect Carl Friedrich Gustav Waehneldt, who drew heavily on the urban palazzi of Renaissance Florence and Venice, wrapping private wealth in neoclassical symmetry by 1867.

Thirty years later, the imperial monarchy had fallen, and the young Brazilian Republic needed a seat of executive power. In 1896, under President Prudente de Morais, the federal government bought the mansion, inaugurating it the following year as the official presidential palace.

Then came an artistic addition that gave the building an enduring nickname. In 1910, the sculptor Rodolfo Bernardelli placed seven massive bronze figures along the roof parapet. They are actually mythological harpies, half-woman, half-bird of prey. But the public took one look at the fierce wings and curved talons and decided they were eagles. From that point on, Brazilians affectionately, or apprehensively, called this seat of federal authority the Palácio das Águias, the Palace of the Eagles. It is a wonderfully stubborn Brazilian mix: an imperial plantation fortune recast as a republican fortress, forever watched over by monsters masquerading as national birds.